The 960 EVO's numbers aren't all that shy of the 960 Pro's. Like the Pro, the updated EVO packs Samsung's brand-new Polaris controller and third-generation V-NAND goodness. The big difference, as usual, is that the EVO's NAND is in TLC configuration rather than MLC. To make up part of the resulting performance gap, the drive features the latest version of Samsung's TurboWrite pseudo-SLC caching tech. Perhaps the most notable change from the 850 EVO is the fact that the 960 EVO runs on NVMe rather than AHCI—the democratization of PCI Express storage marches on.

The 960 Pro blew our socks off, so if the EVO delivers most of that mojo for a more reasonable price, Samsung will have another winner on its hands. Stay tuned for our thoughts and test results.